


boys working on empty

by farplanes



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Fluff, Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 05:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11396661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farplanes/pseuds/farplanes
Summary: All the touching, and the joking, and the promises whispered against Steve’s hair whenever Bucky thinks Steve’s asleep, and they still can’t look at each other in the face when it counts.Well. Well—Steve’s had enough of it.





	boys working on empty

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet I'm reposting here to celebrate Steve's birthday. Enjoy!
> 
> Title from "Work Song" by Hozier

 

Steve Rogers is 20 years old today. And he’s got a plan.

He walks into his apartment with shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and sweat dripping down his temple, and on the kitchen table he sees a lopsided cake with a single lit candle protruding from its center. His best friend is congratulating him with a roaring “Surprise, Stevie!” and Steve is flushed red from head to foot.  _God_ , but Bucky Barnes will be the death of him yet.

“Thought you forgot, jerk,” he says with humor. Bucky shrugs, smiling that half-way smile of his.

“Aw, come on kid, I’m not that thick. The guys in the ship yard start the fireworks three days early every year, how the hell do you think I could possibly miss your birthday?”

Steve doesn’t answer him in favor of coming closer and slinging his arm over Bucky’s shoulders for a hug.

“Did you make the cake yourself?”

Bucky laughs. “Yeah, even had to ask Mrs. Laurie upstairs if I could use her oven so you wouldn’t suspect this afternoon. Not bad, right?”

Steve takes another look at the thing and feels his heart beating in his throat. It looks dreadful, but Bucky made it with his own two hands, so what’s a guy to do?

“I won’t know till I get a slice,” he replies. Bucky pulls away from their embrace to grab a knife he’d already set on the table. He cuts up nearly a fourth of the cake and puts it on a plate with a fork leaning on its lip.

Bucky gestures grandly before saying, “By all means, Mr. Rogers. Sample the goods.”

Steve’s eyes flicker to Bucky’s lips for a fraction of a second—a fraction of a second long enough to be conscious of himself—and then forces himself to look away. He stabs the edge of the slice with the fork and shovels it quickly into his mouth. It’s creamy and soft on his pallet, a cake almost as good as the ones his Ma used to make.

“Did you use my Ma’s recipe?” he asks, knocking his elbow lightly into Bucky’s hip. Bucky smiles even wider and pats his hand right between Steve’s shoulder blades, like he could slap the exhaustion out of Steve’s frail body if he put enough elbow grease into it.

“You bet. Did I do it justice?”

Steve chews on another bite of cake. It’s very good. Not exactly as soft as his mother’s cakes, but there’s a familiar sweetness and warmth to it that stays on Steve’s tongue long after he’s swallowed. Something that tastes a lot like love, he likes to think.

“She won’t be rolling out of her grave anytime soon to clock you, at least.”

Bucky howls with laughter and cuts himself a slice, too. “I hope not. Had a great left hook on her, your Ma.” He looks at Steve for a good long second, then adds carefully: “She’d be so proud of you, you know.”

“Yeah well. She’d be prouder of you. Makin’ her cake so nice like you were a dame trying to charm me. ‘Knew that Barnes kid was gonna lead my boy to sin,’ she’d say.” Steve can almost hear it in his head, his mother’s voice high and lovely as she leaves red lipstick marks on both of their cheeks for their troubles.

Bucky turns away when he laughs this time. “Who’s leading whom to sin?” he says lightly. Steve still feels his sweat dripping down his chin as he stares at the line of Bucky’s shoulders. It’s ridiculous, he thinks. He’s 20 goddamn years old and he still can’t look his best buddy in the face sometimes.

They’ve spent so many late nights huddled in each other’s arms for warmth. More than half of their lives filled with those quiet moments of Steve ironing Bucky’s shirts in the mornings, Bucky picking up small gifts for Steve on the weekends, Steve washing Bucky’s hair in a bucket when the water supply runs low, Bucky massaging Steve’s feet on his rougher days.

All the touching, and the joking, and the promises whispered against Steve’s hair whenever Bucky thinks Steve’s asleep, and they still can’t look at each other in the face when it counts.

Well.  _Well_ —Steve’s had enough of it.

“You know what I want for my present, ‘sides this cake of yours?” he starts. His fingers are shaking, but he’s still looking at the back of Bucky’s head, willing their eyes to meet. He’s a lot of pathetic things, but a coward about this won’t be one.

Bucky turns back around, the corners of his lips tilted up with oncoming laughter. “Yeah, punk. A gorgeous dame on your arm.”

“No.” Steve swallows his own heartbeat and steps forward till he can smell the flour on Bucky’s clothes. “I want a kiss from the cook.”

Bucky’s smile falls.

It takes all the effort left in Steve’s body to pay attention—not leap out the nearest window—when Bucky answers with a quiet, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve chokes. It comes out breathless and terrified instead of the challenge that Steve had hoped it would be.

But here they are at last. Finally talking about this  _thing_  between them like the grown-ups they’re supposed to be. Steve lets regret and panic wash over him for another moment before he casts them forcefully to the side.

He’d told himself in the mirror this morning. He won’t live scared of his own heart anymore, and he especially won’t live scared of Bucky’s. He’s got too much to give to let it waste away like that. Steve’s never looked twice at another soul except his Ma and this big-hearted boy in front of him now, and that’s gotta mean something.

The man in question swallows a lump in his throat so hard he sounds like a clogged drain. His eyes are wide, right on Steve’s face. He looks just as terrified as Steve feels.

But he says: “Come get it then,” softly.

And Steve doesn’t waste another second.

He inches up close to Bucky, hands on either side of Bucky’s face to take in everything between his fingers. Light eyes, dark hair, a smile that could woo the masses, and it’s all Bucky face; it’s all Steve’s favorite. He brushes his thumbs across Bucky’s cheeks, warm to his touch, then leans forward and lets his mouth do the rest of the work.

This happened once before. Once not so long ago, when they were stupider and younger than they are now. But they were so scared back then—scared of what it meant, of where it would take them. Steve remembers the turn in his stomach when he traced his lips across the lines of Bucky’s face, as his heart beat fast and loud and free. Like it knew it’d found a home and wanted to leap out and into Bucky’s chest right that very moment. They were stupid, scared little kids and they pulled apart and never talked about it again because that’s the way the world works for boys like them. They don’t get to have homes so sturdy.

But now Steve is brave.

He feels  _so_ brave.

He can taste Bucky’s sweat and he can feel the give of Bucky’s plump lips against his own and it’s all softness and wetness and Bucky kind of tastes like the cake he’d made and  _shit_. Fucking  _shit_. Steve feels like he could lift the whole world up. He doesn’t need anything else but this for another 20 years at least.

Bucky sucks in a huge breath of air and cleaves his tongue between the seams of Steve’s lips. Steve lets him, and it’s not so long until he feels his back hit the edge of the table, his palms all over Bucky’s hips. It makes his blood rush and his fingers clench, and lord have mercy on both of their souls. Lord have mercy on the late Sarah Rogers' heirloom dining table, for that matter.

“Buck,” Steve sighs with much reluctance, “I gotta—we gotta—” Bucky pulls away to let him talk, finding a spot on Steve’s neck to suck on instead.

“Aw hell Steve, what the fuck did you bathe in today?” He punctuates his question by debauching Steve’s chin with the flat of his tongue. 

“That soap you always buy from the Saturday market.” Steve’s usually a wittier conversationalist, too. Goes to show how much he knows when it comes to getting his mouth tangled up in James Barnes.

They go at it for a little while longer before Bucky willfully slows it down, presses one last kiss to Steve’s left cheek, and reminds them both that “those Macdonald kids next door’ll hear.”

Steve lets him pull away only far enough to get some air, his fingers running hard under Bucky’s jaw, over his ears, into his hair. He’s damp with sweat, too, and Steve has never been more endeared by the sight of some dirtied up dock boy in his life.

Bucky shoots back a look that damn near melts him.

“Woowee, look at my little Steve getting just what he wants on his birthday.” Bucky turns his face to kiss the inside of one of Steve’s palms, smirking. “I’m a whipped man, I’m tellin’ ya.”

Steve thinks, so fondly: look at this big old ham.

He leans forward and lays another one right on the side of Bucky Barnes’ smug mouth, just to shut him up.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
